The Bastard and the Broken Trees
by The Little Author that Could
Summary: Twice they slept on a hill called High Heart. Twice Arya walked around the weirwood ring. Twice Gendry knelt for a chance at her heart. Arya/Gendry. T for language.


**disclaimer:** I do not own A Song of Ice and Fire or anything from it you recognize

a oneshot based on the following quotes:

A Storm of Swords, Arya, page 301

_"They next day they rode to a place called High Heart, a hill so lofty that from atop it Arya felt as though she could see half the world. Around its brow stood a ring of huge pale stumps, all that remained of a circle of once-mighty weirwoods. Arya and Gendry walked around the hill to count them. There were thirty-one, some so wide that she could have used them for a bed."_

A Storm of Swords, Arya, page 590

_"When Arya saw the shape of the great hill looming in the distance, golden in the afternoon sun, she knew it at once. They had come all the way back to High Heart._

_By sunset they were at the top, making camp where no harm could come to them. Arya walked around the circle of weirwood stumps with Lord Beric's squire Ned, and they stood on top of one watching the last light fade in the west."_

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><p><strong>The Bastard and the Broken Trees<strong>

"You pray to trees?"

Arya's face was angry when it snapped up from the stump, but then she saw Gendry was not mocking her, and so answered, "Only to the ones with faces. They're called heart trees."

"I never heard of a tree with a face," Gendry sat beside her on the brow of High Heart, a king of a hill looking down upon lesser lands, crowned in a ring of great white weirwood stumps.

"The children of the forest carved them thousands of years ago. They used to be all over the country, but in the war with the children most got cut down," Arya turned back to the weirwood, placing her hands on it gingerly. Her ragged hair caught the wind and snapped around her face, "The war never really reached the North, though, and every castle beyond the Neck still has its tree, and my Uncle Benjen says there are hundreds beyond the Wall. They have big red leaves, and red eyes too, because the sap crusts in them. The one at Winterfell is in a little clearing, next to pool of black water. We call it the godswood. It's where we pray."

It suited her, Gendry thought, to worship ancient, feral gods in trees when the rest of the realm prayed with crystal stars and gilded statues. "And what're the prayers?"

"Everything. Nothing," Arya chewed her lip for a moment, a faraway look in her eyes, then shook her head as though to clear it, "There are no proper prayers or songs for the old gods. You ask for exactly what you want, and give thanks for exactly what you're grateful for. You say what is in your heart," Arya slid her hand along the stump, almost lovingly, "I wonder if these were heart trees, or only weirwoods."

"I think they were heart trees. It _is_ called High Heart," Gendry told her, in hopes that was what she wanted them to be. She looked so dejected, and a little frail. Arya never looked frail, "Tom says the smallfolk are afraid of this place. S'pose they would be, if there was once a ring of trees with faces. Why else would they cut them down?"

"It would have been beautiful," she sighed, a wistful, sorrowful sound, "Not one heart tree is like another, you know. Every face is different. I've only seen two, and the one at Harrenhal was so angry. I would have liked to see so many different ones. I would like to see one smile."

"I'd like to see you smile, m'lady," Gendry murmured. He felt his ears burning, and he hoped she wouldn't call him stupid.

Arya looked to him, her mouth a little open with surprise, but it quickly snapped into a smile that seemed almost shy. It made something in his chest tighten, "There's a weirwood at Riverrun, my mother told me. Might be that one's happy. We'll see, when we get there," She stood up then, to climb onto the stump itself, and Gendry followed her. It was big enough for them to sit together with their legs folded under them, their knees barely touching. Gendry looked away from the hilltop to the spread of rivers and farms and flower-strewn fields far below, dotted with villages and holdfasts they knew from passing to be war-ravaged and empty, but from the heights were too small to see the broken, blackened walls. The world was vast, much more so than he could have imagined, even though he'd been hauled back and forth across a lot of it as of late.

"We'll be there soon. Riverrun. You must be glad."

"Mostly I want to go home, but partly I don't," she admitted quietly, "I don't want to be made a lady again."

Gendry snorted. "How terrible for you, to be a princess."

He earned a punch for that. "Shut up! Stupid. You don't _know_. I'll have to wear silk gowns all the time that I mustn't get dirty. I'll have to study dancing and courtesies and needlework, and the septa will scold me because I've no skill with any of those things, but that's what ladies are supposed to do, and meanwhile all the things I'm good at are improper for a girl. And everyone will tell me I should be more like Sansa. And in a few years I'll be found some lord or maybe a knight, and marry him because Robb says I have to, and I'll bear him sons and keep his house. And-" Arya paused abruptly. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she spoke again all the ferocity was gone. "…and that's all I'll ever do," she released a slow, frustrated breath, "I'll probably never touch another sword."

Gendry felt like an idiot. He couldn't seem to help being cross when he was reminded of her place in the world, and always managed to say exactly the right thing to make her hit him. And as much as he thought she should be bloody grateful she would have more power and wealth than most anyone, he saw it was sad the path she was forced to take was so unlike the one she wanted, "I'll make you a sword, in secret. Whatever kind you like," he swore to her, "And I'll spar with you and everything."

"Would you?" Arya smiled again, and he was pleased for it, "I'm glad you're to Riverrun, Gendry, even if you don't make a secret sword. It will be nice to have someone to talk to. Someone who doesn't care if my knees are scabbed."

"I'd be worried if they weren't." Arya punched him again, but barely enough to hurt. Gendry reached over and pushed her head, ruffling her hair and making her laugh out loud. She took her bottom lip between her teeth, still smiling, before she wrapped both her arms around one of his and squeezed. Gendry felt his face flush and his body tense, and she must have felt it too; in an instant Arya's hands were back in her lap and she was watching him warily, looking unsure of herself. They stared at each other for a moment, a strange and heavy silence between them. Arya chose to break it by shoving him off the stump.

He landed with a great thud in the grass, and when he opened his eyes Arya was on her hands and knees at the edge of the weirwood, laughing at him. Gendry sat up quick, stretching a hand out to pull her down beside him. She was so close he was sure he'd catch her, but as always she slipped just out of his reach.

"Let's see the other weirwoods!" she said, "Let's count them!" Without waiting for his answer Arya dashed off across the hill, and there was nothing he could do but follow her.

That was not so long ago, but much had happened in the days between their two visits to High Heart. He had helped give water to starving men in cages. He had been in his first brothel and got as drunk as he'd ever been, though he'd not sampled the wares: as a bastard he had qualms about giving a whore a big belly. He had seen a dead man duel with a flaming sword, had seen him slaughtered and revived again. He had seen Arya in a real gown, her hair all trimmed and tidy, her washed face pale and glistening. And he had been _knighted_: he was now Ser Gendry of the Hollow Hill. He had thought that would change something, and it had, but not at all in the way he wanted. A blacksmith had no chance with a highborn lady, but a knight was worthy. It was a small hope, he knew, because even with a Ser on his name he was still Gendry Waters; but the opportunity to move up in the world was unlikely to find him again, so he had knelt before the Lightning Lord in the cold earth of the brewhouse floor and had risen a knight of the realm.

Too bad Arya didn't care that he was a knight, only that he wouldn't go to Riverrun with her anymore; except that he would have found her, he _would_, after he had done a few great things to prove himself, or at least a few good ones. But she had spit such hateful words before he had gotten to say so, and Gendry had decided she could go to hell, if she was going to be a stupid, spoiled bitch about it. Couldn't she see it was for her, that _everything_ he'd done since she had crawled out of the tunnel under the barn, dressed in dirt and burns and bruises, had been for her? And _fuck_, he missed her friendship terribly, and he longed to yank her into his arms and tell her he had just wanted to stand half a fucking chance with her, had just wanted her to see a knight instead of a bastard boy. But he was too shy and too angry and too goddamned bullheaded. He always had been.

This visit Arya walked among the weirwood stumps with Ned Dayne, the boy who was named for her father, and who was her favorite brother's milk-brother. Beric Dondarrion's own squire. The little fucking _lord_. She probably told him all about her gods, and maybe even how she was upset that she wouldn't be allowed a sword. The Lord of Starfall couldn't forge her a blade, but he could marry her and be the sort of husband who would permit her one, a much finer one than Gendry could ever make. Now and again he heard their laughter, and playful shouts, and when the sun had almost vanished below the horizon he saw them climb on a stump to watch it, side by side. Gendry did not know until that moment it was possible to hate someone and want to kiss her, all at once.

When night had truly fallen, with the men gathered around a distant fire and the young ones sent abed, Gendry crawled out of his bedroll and crept along the weirwood ring. It took him a while to distinguish one stump from the other, as they looked so very strange and silvery under the horned moon, but in the end he was sure he found the one he wanted. Here is where she smiled for him, and hugged his arm. It was a small hope, he knew, because these were only the remains of heart trees, if they had ever been heart trees at all; but the opportunity to pray to one was unlikely to find him again, so he knelt before the weirwood in the thick grass on the high hill, his hands clasped and his head bowed. This is how one prayed to the Seven, and the only way he knew how, though he didn't do it often. The Seven had never given him much: an unknown father and a poor, dead mother and smithy to beat out his anger in. Perhaps his lady's gods would treat him better, if he could only think of what to say. _You ask for exactly what you want, and give thanks for exactly what you're grateful for. You say what is in your heart_. Gendry knew the answer readily, to all those things, and he whispered it quietly into cold, white wood.

"Arya."


End file.
